‘ Family Offer’ Information session Universal and Universal Plus Family Support Services

Current position  Sandwell currently has a range of Family Support Services including children’s centres; family support for children and young people 5-18; young fathers work; work with parents with learning disability; autism advice service; south Asian families with children with a disability  Existing contracts and grants end on 31 March 2017

Re-modelling Re-modelling proposals for services to commence 1 April 2017  Town-based service  Integrated services bringing together the different elements of existing services  0-19 service Current consultation being undertaken to gather feedback on these points.

Children’s Centres  Existing core children’s centres will form the central focus for the service  To fit with the town approach there will be a move from 7 to 6 clusters of centres  Existing nursery plus centres will be retained but will have a greater role for the provision of ELT places and extended 30 hrs places for NEF  The new service will need to retain good working relationships with nursery plus centres

Early Help: Universal and Universal Plus services  The new service will form a key element of the Early Help strategy.  The service will work primarily at the Universal Plus level but will retain some Universal elements eg information point  For further details of levels please refer to the SSCB Multi Agency Thresholds Document (March 2017)

CAF system  Services will continue to receive workflow through the COG managers and from other services eg Health Visitors  The services will continue to use the existing CAF system; chair TAF meetings; act as Lead Professional; etc  Outcomes Star will be used to measure distance-travelled in all cases

Information and advice  The service will be a key hub for the provision of information, advice and support for local families  The service is expected to have a good knowledge of services in their respective town area  It is hoped that existing benefits advice services will continue to be delivered through centres (separate contracts)

Parenting programmes  The service will be required to deliver a range of approved parenting programmes at different levels/for different ages of children & young people in their respective town area

Early Years  The service will not be a direct provider of ELT or NEF services for children  There will be move away from the service being a direct provider of ‘Stay and Play’ type sessions for parents with young children  The service will be expected to have a volunteer co-ordinator to recruit, train and support volunteers to run such groups  Other elements of Early Years services are to be confirmed.

Links to health services  The service is required to have a close working relationship with Health Visitors to provide early intervention as necessary to support families  It is expected that children’s centres will continue to provide a venue for clinics, development checks, etc  Other elements of joint work with health services are under discussion.

Questions ?

Timeline  2 stage tender process  Advert will be placed in August 2016  PQQ will need to be returned by mid September  Tender documents released to successful agencies in early October  Deadline for receipt of tenders likely to be mid November  Decisions scheduled for end of 2016